[campus-JHU-staff] More information, and volunteer positions

[Asheesh Laroia]

Excerpts from Denise Paolucci's message of Thu Aug 16 17:30:26 -0400 2012:
> 
> On Aug 16, 2012, at 5:03 PM, Asheesh Laroia wrote:
> 
> > https://openhatch.org/wiki/Open_Source_Comes_to_Campus/JHU
> > 
> > Do give it a read, and let me know what you think, and if you'd recommend schedule changes, and if you have questions, and if you want to volunteer for anything in particular.
> 
> 
> this is a reminder that in the initial conversation i had with asheesh 
> about participating in the event, i offered up a talk on overcoming 
> impostor syndrome in yourself and in helping others to get past their 
> own impostor syndrome!
> 
> the reason being, on dreamwidth i'd say i spend about 40-50% of my 
> time helping people to work past their impostor syndrome, and i credit 
> our helpful/welcoming environment where it's always ok to ask a 
> question and it's always ok to make a mistake with being the main 
> reason why we're so successful in attracting and retaining newcomers. 
> i've learned a lot of techniques that projects can do to help bypass 
> impostor syndrome in their contributors, but i've also learned a lot 
> of things that people suffering from impostor syndrome can do to help 
> boost their self-confidence.
> 
> it may be out of scope for this particular event, but it's something i 
> feel passionate about and i thought i'd offer it for consideration! 
> many open source projects out there can be pretty "newcomer hostile" 
> and make people feel like crap for asking questions, so i think 
> equipping people with the skills to overcome self-doubt and impostor 
> syndrome can really be valuable.

Yes! Thank you for reminding!

I think that'd be a super helpful topic. Overcoming self-doubt is the 
one of the most important skills one can have in open communities.

I have some different ideas as to where we could put it. Partly, it 
depends on how long you think a session would take, and what format you 
would like.

One thing we could do is that you could actually give the main Thursday 
ACM talk on "How to communicate in open source communities, as a user" 
and blend it into that. We have an hour dedicated to that, Thursday at 
6, and I think that would be splendid way to improve that section of the 
curriculum. I think that the skill of speaking up is useful in both 
capacities, and that the conversation about self-doubt is a good way to 
bridge that gap.

Alternately we can try to find another place to blend it in.

I don't want to end up being *too* much of a burden on your schedule, 
Denise, but I think the Thursday option is actually the best. Might that 
work for you? If it requires narrowing-down your Saturday time 
commitment I'd totally understand.

> if nobody else is available/willing, i can also volunteer to teach or 
> to TA one of the command line skills workshops, assuming you mean unix 
> command line. (we have a page on the dreamwidth developer wiki -- 
> http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/wiki/index.php/Command_line_tutorial -- 
> called "help! my dreamhack has a command line!", "dreamhacks" being 
> the hosted developer environments we provide for people so they don't 
> have to get enmeshed in dependency hell; the whole wiki is CC-BY-SA, 
> so even if i don't wind up being the person to do the workship, 
> whoever does it should feel free to steal from any of that page with 
> impunity.)

I'll see if I can scare up some other volunteers for that first. Thank 
you!

-- Asheesh.